News Archives - Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Foundation Launches Bay Area Lyme Ventures as First Impact Investment Fund to Support Entrepreneurs and Companies Advancing Lyme Disease Solutions

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bay Area Lyme Foundation Launches Bay Area Lyme Ventures as First Impact Investment Fund to Support Entrepreneurs and Companies Advancing Lyme Disease Solutions

New venture philanthropy fund announces initial investments and will help guide game-changing Lyme diagnostics and therapeutics to commercialization

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., September 4, 2025 — Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, today announced the launch of Bay Area Lyme Ventures (Lyme Ventures), a bold new impact fund that is the first designed to attract and drive investment to promising tick-borne diagnostics and therapeutics nearing commercialization. By bringing together strategic research investments, collaborative partnerships, and patient-focused resources, Lyme Ventures aims to advance innovative diagnostics and therapeutics to fill significant gaps that exist in medical care. Today, the fund announces investments in Aces Diagnostics and LymeAlert, both of which are designed to help people bitten by ticks navigate the complicated process of getting an accurate diagnosis.

“This new chapter expands Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s commitment to accelerating innovative diagnostics and therapeutic breakthroughs, as there is an extreme scarcity of support for entrepreneurs and companies developing accurate solutions for patients and clinicians in tick-borne disease,” said Linda Giampa, who led Bay Area Lyme Foundation for the past 12 years and is now the founder and managing director of Bay Area Lyme Ventures.

Lyme Ventures will complement Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s continued commitment to funding scientific research by advancing promising discoveries into clinical development and, ultimately, through commercialization. To date, Bay Area Lyme Foundation has granted more than $30 million toward research, while Lyme Ventures has a goal of investing $5 million by 2027 into companies working to bring solutions to market. Proceeds from these philanthropic investments will fund research projects at Bay Area Lyme Foundation.

Dr. Joe Burrascano: A Masterclass on Tick-Borne Illness

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Ticktective Podcast Transcript

In this episode of Ticktective™, host Dana Parish interviews Joe Burrascano, MD. Dr. Burrascano is a pioneer in the field of Lyme disease, having treated patients since the early days of the illness in the 1980s and 1990s. He co-founded the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) to help train clinicians in treating Lyme and associated tick-borne diseases. Dr. Burrascano discusses the challenges in diagnosing and treating Lyme, including issues with the limited testing criteria and the chronic, multisystemic nature of the disease. He outlines his approach to treating early Lyme with a “hybrid” antibiotic regimen, as well as the use of pulsed and cycling antibiotic therapies for chronic cases. He also highlights the importance of addressing underlying health factors like immune dysfunction, toxin buildup, and co-infections like Bartonella and mold toxicity in chronic Lyme patients. Dr. Burrascano emphasizes the need for a holistic, patient-centered approach to managing complex, persistent tick-borne illnesses.

“If you have something that’s every part of your body is bothering you, and it comes and goes and it moves around, of course, you’re going to be labeled as a little bit cuckoo. It’s not. It’s Lyme disease.”

– Joe Burrascano, MD

Dana Parish: Welcome to the Ticktective Podcast, a program of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, where our mission is to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure. I’m your host, Dana Parish, and I’m the co-author of the book Chronic, and I sit on the advisory board of Bay Area Lyme Foundation. This program offers insightful interviews with scientists, clinicians, patients, and other interesting people. We’re a nonprofit based in Silicon Valley, and thanks to a generous grant that covers a hundred percent of our overhead, all of your donations go directly to our research and prevention programs. For more information about Lyme disease, please visit us@bayarealyme.org.

Justin Timberlake’s Lyme Diagnosis and His Struggle to Be Believed

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Spotlights Series

Medical skepticism isn’t just cruel, it’s physically, mentally, and emotionally harmful.

When Justin Timberlake revealed his Lyme disease after weeks of criticism for low-energy performances during his recent tour, the Internet did what the Internet does: It immediately questioned whether he was telling the truth.

The skepticism was rife and merciless. Reddit threads quickly surfaced with accusations that he was making excuses, faking illness, or using Lyme as a convenient cover story. “There must be something else going on,” people assumed. “Chronic Lyme isn’t a thing,” they said.

While it’s almost expected to see anonymous Internet commenters take aim at a major celebrity going through a low point, for the millions of Americans living with Lyme disease, Timberlake’s experience is not surprising at all.

Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves from Tick Bites

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Spotlights Series

“Lyme and ticks are talked about a lot more! Students are showing peers their tick keys and sharing information, and even staff are discussing it around campus.”

– Melissa Kelly, teacher

Children are the most at-risk group for contracting tick-borne diseases, so Monterey Peninsula health educator, Melissa Kelly, gave her students an important assignment during Lyme Disease Awareness month: design a poster to teach their school community about Lyme and tick-borne diseases and how to prevent tick bites. Bay Area Lyme Foundation provided tick keys and educational materials to support Melissa’s teaching and curriculum. We asked Melissa to tell us about the project!

Q: Melissa, tell us about your school, where it’s located, and how you learned about Lyme disease awareness month.

A: Chartwell School is located in Seaside, California. We serve students with learning differences such as dyslexia and more. Our school community includes students from 1st to 12th grade. I work specifically with high school students. I first learned about Lyme Disease Awareness Month after my own experience with Lyme disease. Before teaching, I worked as a field biologist and likely contracted Lyme during my fieldwork. Thankfully, I was able to get it treated, and I am okay. That experience has kept me engaged with the latest research and studies on tick-borne diseases, which is how I learned about Lyme Awareness Month.

New Bay Area Lyme Foundation Study Reports That Only One-Third of Early Lyme Patients with On-Going Symptoms Followed up with their Healthcare Providers

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Bay Area Lyme Foundation Study Reports That Only One-Third of Early Lyme Patients with On-Going Symptoms Followed up with their Healthcare Providers

The new research, published in Frontiers in Medicine, points to need for greater follow-up from medical professionals to address potential treatment failures.

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., July 10, 2025—Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, announced the publication of new research in Frontiers in Medicine based on data from Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s Lyme Disease Biobank. This large-scale study conducted over 10 years at sites on the East Coast and the Upper Midwest demonstrates the need for improved diagnostics and increased follow-up by medical professionals for Lyme disease patients.

Only one-fifth of study participants (23%), enrolled with signs and symptoms of early Lyme, were positive by the CDC’s standard two-tiered test for Lyme disease, which supports previous research that found that it misses up to 70% of cases of early-stage Lyme disease. Further, approximately 1 in 5 patients reported ongoing symptoms at 3 months, including joint pain, fatigue, and muscle pain yet only one-third (35%) of these participants followed up with their healthcare providers about these ongoing symptoms. Due to difficulties in diagnosing Lyme disease and resulting treatment delays, as many as two million people may suffer from persistent Lyme disease, which can be debilitating.

Accurate, timely detection of Lyme disease is critical to preventing long-term complications. Moreover, follow-up from medical professionals with all patients after they complete antibiotic treatment could improve outcomes and reduce the burden of Lyme disease,” said lead author Liz Horn, PhD, MBI, Principal Investigator of Lyme Disease Biobank, a Bay Area Lyme Foundation program which helps to accelerate research by collecting, storing and providing much-needed human biological samples for use in research. “Our data also confirm the limitations of serology testing in early Lyme disease and after antibiotic treatment.”

Bay Area Lyme Foundation Announces National Winner of the 2025 Emerging Leader Award to Develop a Much-Needed Rapid, Low-Cost, Easy-to-Use Lyme Disease Test

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bay Area Lyme Foundation Announces National Winner of the 2025 Emerging Leader Award to Develop a Much-Needed Rapid, Low-Cost, Easy-to-Use Lyme Disease Test

Winner Chao Wang of Arizona State University will receive $150,000 to evaluate a unique diagnostic that uses gold nanoparticles and has been proven in other infectious diseases

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., June 12, 2025—Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, has given its 2025 Emerging Leader Award (ELA) to Chao Wang, PhD, associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University, faculty with ASU’s Biodesign Institute® and an expert in nanotechnology and biosensors. Wang will receive $150,000 to support his work to develop a much-needed rapid, low-cost, easy-to-use test, called Nano2RED-LD, for Lyme disease. The test aims to deliver results in as few as 30 minutes when a patient who may have Lyme disease first sees a doctor.

There is an immense need for better Lyme disease tests. Today’s standard-of-care tests miss too many cases at all stages of Lyme disease, including as many as 70% of early Lyme cases.

“With Lyme disease cases rising steadily across the U.S., the need for accurate and timely diagnostic tools has never been greater,” said Katariina Tuovinen, research grant director, Bay Area Lyme Foundation. “Dr. Wang’s pioneering work epitomizes the essence of this award as it applies innovation from other infectious diseases in an effort to enhance outcomes for patients affected by Lyme disease.”

Science Translational Medicine Study Funded by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation Identifies FDA-approved Piperacillin as More Effective, Targeted Treatment for Lyme Disease

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Science Translational Medicine Study Funded by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation Identifies FDA-approved Piperacillin as More Effective, Targeted Treatment for Lyme Disease

An additional Science Translational Medicine study also funded by Bay Area Lyme Foundation uncovers how lingering bacterial cell wall molecules may contribute to chronic Lyme symptoms

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif. April 23, 2025 – Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, announces two pre-clinical studies published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine. The studies demonstrate promising implications for improved Lyme disease treatment and understanding of chronic Lyme through peptidoglycan, a molecule found in the cell wall of the bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), which causes Lyme disease. The first study finds piperacillin, an FDA-approved treatment for pneumonia that inhibits peptidoglycan production, may be a more effective treatment for Lyme disease than the current “gold standard” treatment, doxycycline, which is not effective for up to 20% of patients. The second study uncovers how lingering peptidoglycan builds up in the joint fluid and liver, contributing to chronic Lyme symptoms, which affect over 20% of patients treated for Lyme disease.

“Piperacillin may be a game-changer for improving Lyme disease treatment, which is currently a challenge for researchers and physicians. Furthermore, our new mechanistic understanding of how piperacillin affects peptidoglycan synthesis is unexpectedly informing our development of a biomarker-based approach to diagnose acute Lyme disease,” said Brandon Jutras, PhD, associate professor of Microbiology-Immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and a Bay Area Lyme Foundation 2021 Emerging Leader Award winner. “Our second study explores the role of peptidoglycan in chronic Lyme symptoms; peptidoglycan influences an inflammatory and chronic illness response for weeks or even months after infection, adding to the growing evidence that remnants of bacteria and viruses can stick around and keep affecting the body, similar to the occurrence of Long COVID in some patients.”

Nancy Haney’s Death: A Tragic Story of Misdiagnosis, Delayed Diagnosis, and Medical Failure

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Spotlights Series

“If you have someone who’s sick and you are treating them and they’re not getting better, then either the treatment is wrong or the diagnosis is wrong.”

– David Haney, PhD

Nancy Haney was a highly respected pediatric physical therapist who developed serious health problems that were misdiagnosed over many years, leading to delays in treatment. After exhaustive efforts, it was determined that Nancy had developed an autoimmune condition—likely triggered by Lyme disease—that resulted in debilitating symptoms and complications, including a long-lasting case of shingles, which eventually led to a fatal hemorrhagic stroke. David Haney, Nancy’s husband, recounts his tireless pursuit to find Nancy appropriate care and treatment. Despite his efforts, the mainstream medical system repeatedly failed to correctly diagnose and treat Nancy’s underlying conditions, which led to a tragic and preventable outcome.

David’s story is a call to action for greater awareness, more comprehensive training for doctors, and a fundamental shift in the medical community’s approach to complex, multifaceted infection-associated chronic conditions. Nancy’s case highlights the critical need for improved awareness, diagnostic tools, and treatment approaches for complex cases involving Lyme and tick-borne diseases. Only then can we hope to prevent other families from enduring the same treatment failures as the Haney family.

Connection and Collaboration Bringing Hope: Understanding the Immune System’s Role in Post-Treatment Lyme Disease

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Spotlights Series

“Philanthropy is mission-critical to advance the field of Lyme disease research.”

– Bill Robinson, MD, PhD

In this conversation, we talk with Bill Robinson, MD, PhD, the James W. Raitt professor of medicine and division chief, division of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University, about how his work is helping us understand the immune system’s response to a Lyme infection. A long-term collaborator and grant recipient of Bay Area Lyme Foundation, Dr. Robinson reflects on his history with our organization, the plight of Lyme patients, the paucity of government funding for investigations into the disease, where Lyme disease research is now, and where he thinks it’s headed in the next 5-10 years.

Dr. Neil Nathan: When You’re Not Getting Better. Best-selling Author and Chronic Illness Expert has Answers.

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Quick Bites series

“If you have Lyme disease and your treatment is stalled out or not moving or you’re not progressing the way you should, please check for mold. It’s almost certain that’s what you need to be working on next.”

– Neil Nathan, MD

Our Ticktective host, Dana Parish, interviews Dr. Neil Nathan, renowned physician and best-selling author. Dr. Nathan specializes in treating chronic illnesses, particularly those related to environmental toxins, vector-borne infections, and complex systemic disorders. With decades of experience in clinical practice, he focuses on understanding the impact of toxins on health and is dedicated to helping patients recover from illnesses that conventional medicine often struggles to address. His bestselling book, Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Other Chronic Environmental Illnesses, provides a comprehensive guide to recognizing, diagnosing, and treating various chronic conditions linked to environmental factors.

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